The 4 Apps That Are Total Game Changers For New Yorkers and Beyond

If you dine out with friends, need a compatible roommate, want to stay current with neighborhood happenings, or care about historical street scenes, these four innovative apps will make life in The Big Apple—and in some cases, other cities, too—a whole lot easier and more enjoyable.

Split a restaurant check with friends in a single click

Photo by Lars Plougmann, CC

Instead of counting cash or stacking credit cards—much to your waiter’s dismay, we’re sure—to divide up the bill among your friends, use Cover, which lets you check in, pay the bill, and add the tip using ApplePay or your credit card.

It’s also a quicker way to pay even if it’s just you picking up the check. The app will even calculate the tip for you, based on what percentage you want to leave.

Ah, simplicity!

You do have to make sure the restaurant takes the payment method first—over 300 restaurants do—and let your server know that is how you’ll be footing the bill.

Find out what’s happening in your very own neighborhood

The Blockfeed app lets you know what’s happening, and when, in any of New York City’s five boroughs.

In addition to notifying you about fun things to do, it also aggregates the most popular local news based on social media feeds, tracking your location and keeping you up to date on important neighborhood news via a local news stream.

Hold up your phone to see what the view was like 100 years ago

OldNYC, a digital project that comes straight from the New York Public Library, lets you see what one of 35,000 buildings used to look like up to 100 years ago.

Many of the photographs were actually taken by one man, Percy Loomis Sperr, who spent decades photographing the city.

Using the app, just hold up the viewfinder, and you’ll be directed to a photo from a database that contains buildings as they appeared back in the day. The database is also full of photos of important historical moments, like a shot of Union Square in 1885 during Ulysses S. Grant’s funeral procession.

Other cities have instated similar apps, like London’s Streetmuseum app, and the website WhatWasThere.com, which gives you access to old photos from around the world.

Photo by Jim Wall, CC

Know what you’re getting into with your new roommate

Roomi, an app that helps you find the perfect roommate before you co-sign that lease, aims to take the risky guesswork out of committing to a cohabitation.

The company aims to take the “fear of the unknown out of moving” and ensure that people feel more at-home wherever they live.

The app, which is free, seems to be successful in making it easy for people to post room openings, and connect with each other. Roomi just features NYC right now, but they plan to expand.